Extragalactic Radio Continuum Surveys and the Transformation of Radio Astronomy

Next-generation radio surveys are about to transform radio astronomy by discovering and studying tens of millions of previously unknown radio sources. These surveys will provide new insights to understand the evolution of galaxies, measuring the evolution of the cosmic star formation rate, and rivalling traditional techniques in the measurement of fundamental cosmological parameters. By observing a new volume of observational parameter space, they are also likely to discover unexpected new phenomena. This review traces the evolution of extragalactic radio continuum surveys from the earliest days of radio astronomy to the present, and identifies the challenges that must be overcome to achieve this transformational change.Comment: To be published in Nature Astronomy 18 Sept 201

Social Media, Professional Media, and Mobilization in Contemporary Britain:Explaining the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Citizens’ Movement 38 Degrees

This article was published in the journal Political Studies [SAGE © The Author(s)] and the definitive version is available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/0032321716631350Digital media continue to reshape political activism in unexpected ways. Within a period of a few years, the internet-enabled UK citizens’ movement 38 Degrees has amassed a membership of 3 million and now sits alongside similar entities such as America’s MoveOn, Australia’s GetUp! and the transnational movement Avaaz. In this article, we contribute to current thinking about digital media and mobilisation by addressing some of the limitations of existing research on these movements and on digital activism more generally. We show how 38 Degrees’ digital network repertoires coexist interdependently with its strategy of gaining professional news media coverage. We explain how the oscillations between choreographic leadership and member influence and between digital media horizontalism and elite media-centric work constitute the space of interdependencies in which 38 Degrees acts. These delicately balanced relations can quickly dissolve and be replaced by simpler relations of dependence on professional media. Yet despite its fragility, we theorise about how 38 Degrees may boost individuals’ political efficacy, irrespective of the outcome of individual campaigns. Our conceptual framework can be used to guide research on similar movements

Condensational symbols in British press coverage of Boko Haram

This study of British press coverage of Boko Haram, a militant group in Nigeria, concentrates on condensational symbols in news reports of one of its major acts of terrorism, the bombing of the United Nations House in Abuja, the country’s capital city, in August 2011. The study examines the visibility of Boko Haram in British newspapers before and after the attack. It identifies the condensational symbols that dominated the coverage and how these provided a particular trajectory that could have shaped newspaper readers’ understanding of the event. The study argues that the symbolic terms that journalists used in their reports were not only easily identifiable but were specifically chosen to simplify a complex story for audiences that were perhaps uninformed about the group and its activities. The terms also reflect the repertoire of news frames that journalists mine to reconstruct reality for their audiences

Ion beam generated surface ripples: new insight in the underlying mechanism

A new hydrodynamic mechanism is proposed for the ion beam induced surface patterning on solid surfaces. Unlike the standard mechanisms based on the ion beam impact generated erosion and mass redistribution at the free surface (proposed by Bradley-Harper (BH) and its extended theories), the new mechanism proposes that the ion beam induced saltation and creep processes, coupled with incompressible solid flow in amorphous layer, leads to the formation of ripple patterns at the amorphous/crystalline (a/c) interface and hence at the free surface. Ion beam stimulated solid flow inside the amorphous layer controls the wavelength, where as the amount of material transported and re-deposited at a/c interface control the amplitude of ripples. The new approach is verified by designed experiments and supported by the discrete simulation method.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1206.082

Use of the Connection Machine to Study Ultrasonic Wave Propagation in Materials

The architecture of conventional (von Neumann) computers, with a single processor and millions of memory units, is inherently inefficient for most applications. In fact, while the processor is extremely busy all the time, only a very small portion of the memory is active. Larger computers are even less efficient, since the ratio of processing power to memory is even smaller and the length of computation is dominated by the ever increasing time required to move data between processor and memory. To overcome this so-called “von Neumann bottleneck,” a new kind of computer, called the “Connection Machine” (CM) has been designed, with a larger number (thousands) of processors, connected in a programmable way, in the framework of a fixed physical wiring scheme [1]. This parallelism allows an opportunity to efficiently reformulate the problem to be studied and modify the approach [2-4]. Currently, the memory available is limited and requires some care in programming. This limitation should decrease with new CM-type machines

Invasive carcinomas of the male breast: a morphologic study of the distribution of histologic subtypes and metastatic patterns in 778 cases

The current investigation was conducted to evaluate the proportional distribution of the various histologic subtypes (including newly recognized variants) of male breast carcinomas, to determine whether any histologic subtypes occur with a frequency that is markedly discordant with the expected frequencies from published data on parallel female breast tumors. We also aimed to document the distribution of malignancies metastatic to the breast. Seven hundred fifty-nine archived cases of primary invasive carcinoma involving the male breast were retrieved and subcategorized into histologic subtypes according to contemporary criteria. Six hundred forty-three (84.7%) tumors were pure infiltrating ductal carcinoma (IDC) not otherwise specified. The most common of the remainder included papillary carcinoma with invasion in the form of IDC (n = 34), mixed IDC and mucinous carcinoma (n = 26), and pure mucinous carcinoma (n = 21). In 19 cases, metastases from other sites involved the breast, most commonly (58%) cutaneous melanoma. Invasive carcinoma of the male breast appears to display a morphologic spectrum and distribution of histologic subtypes that is comparable to those of the female breast, with some expected variation. Compared with published experience on their female counterparts, there is a two-fold increase in the frequency of invasive papillary carcinoma in the male breast. Finally, the most common tumor metastatic to the male breast in this series was cutaneous melanoma

Development of a complex intervention to test the effectiveness of peer support in type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: Diabetes is a chronic illness which requires the individual to assume responsibility for their own care with the aim of maintaining glucose and blood pressure levels as close to normal as possible. Traditionally self management training for diabetes has been delivered in a didactic setting. In recent times alternatives to the traditional delivery of diabetes care have been investigated, for example, the concept of peer support which emphasises patient rather than professional domination. The aim of this paper is to describe the development of a complex intervention of peer support in type 2 diabetes for a randomised control trial in a primary care setting. METHODS: The Medical Research Council (MRC) framework for the development and evaluation of complex interventions for randomised control trials (RCT) was used as a theoretical guide to designing the intervention. The first three phases (Preclinical Phase, Phase 1, Phase 2) of this framework were examined in depth. The Preclinical Phase included a review of the literature relating to type 2 diabetes and peer support. In Phase 1 the theoretical background and qualitative data from 4 focus groups were combined to define the main components of the intervention. The preliminary intervention was conducted in Phase 2. This was a pilot study conducted in two general practices and amongst 24 patients and 4 peer supporters. Focus groups and semi structured interviews were conducted to collect additional qualitative data to inform the development of the intervention. RESULTS: The four components of the intervention were identified from the Preclinical Phase and Phase 1. They are: 1. Peer supporters; 2. Peer supporter training; 3. Retention and support for peer supporters; 4. Peer support meetings. The preliminary intervention was implemented in the Phase 2. Findings from this phase allowed further modeling of the intervention, to produce the definitive intervention. CONCLUSION: The MRC framework was instrumental in the development of a robust intervention of peer support of type 2 diabetes in primary care. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN42541690

Democracy, protest and public sphere in Russia after the 2011–2012 anti-government protests: digital media at stake

The 2011–2012 Russian protest mobilisations were largely enabled by the rise of social networks. Social and technological advancements paired to pave the way for the ‘biggest protests since the fall of USSR’. Ubiquitous and uncensored social media facilitated the networking and mobilisation for this protest activity: Liberal masses were able to share and discuss their grievances, unite and coordinate online for the offline protest. The digitally savvy protest public developed to confront the government, which appeared to be astonished by the scale of protest. Those mobilisations marked an important gap between the government’s conception of the society and the real state of resistance. This article studies three main hypotheses regarding the potential of the protest movement in Russia. The hypotheses were drawn from recent sociological, political and media studies on Russian resistance. Current research aims to contribute to the debate from the digital media perspective. It therefore evaluates three main assumptions: Digital media have the potential to empower, dependent upon the relevant political, social and economic factors; digital media isolates protest publics and therefore may be more useful for the government than the resistance; and recent censorship of digital media communication signals a tightening of both formal and informal restrictions against opposition and protest politics. This article uses theoretical and factual evidence on the limitations of democracy and the public sphere and conceptualises the government’s management of resistance in Russia during and after the 2011–2012 protests. It studies how the hybrid political regime in Russia balances restrictions on freedom of speech with strengthened state propaganda and how it mediates media oppression and invites self-censorship. Finally, it examines how the state communication watchdog has recently focused its attention at the digital realm. This move confirms the importance of the online protest communication for the Russian political environment. Yet the state’s acknowledgement of digital political resistance may lead to further oppression and curbing of this emerging component of Russian politics

In Silico and In Vitro Investigations of the Mutability of Disease-Causing Missense Mutation Sites in Spermine Synthase

Spermine synthase (SMS) is a key enzyme controlling the concentration of spermidine and spermine in the cell. The importance of SMS is manifested by the fact that single missense mutations were found to cause Snyder-Robinson Syndrome (SRS). At the same time, currently there are no non-synonymous single nucleoside polymorphisms, nsSNPs (harmless mutations), found in SMS, which may imply that the SMS does not tolerate amino acid substitutions, i.e. is not mutable.To investigate the mutability of the SMS, we carried out in silico analysis and in vitro experiments of the effects of amino acid substitutions at the missense mutation sites (G56, V132 and I150) that have been shown to cause SRS. Our investigation showed that the mutation sites have different degree of mutability depending on their structural micro-environment and involvement in the function and structural integrity of the SMS. It was found that the I150 site does not tolerate any mutation, while V132, despite its key position at the interface of SMS dimer, is quite mutable. The G56 site is in the middle of the spectra, but still quite sensitive to charge residue replacement.The performed analysis showed that mutability depends on the detail of the structural and functional factors and cannot be predicted based on conservation of wild type properties alone. Also, harmless nsSNPs can be expected to occur even at sites at which missense mutations were found to cause diseases

Care management for Type 2 diabetes in the United States: a systematic review and meta-analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>This systematic review and meta-analysis aims at assessing the composition and performance of care management models evaluated in the last decade and their impact on patient important outcomes.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A comprehensive literature search of electronic bibliographic databases was performed to identify care management trials in type 2 diabetes. Random effects meta-analysis was used when feasible to pool outcome measures.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Fifty-two studies were eligible. Most commonly reported were surrogate outcomes (such as HbA1c and LDL), followed by process measures (clinic visit or testing frequency). Less frequently reported were quality of life, patient satisfaction, self-care, and healthcare utilization. Most care management modalities were carved out from primary care. Meta-analysis demonstrated a statistically significant but trivial reduction of HbA1c (weighted difference in means -0.21%, 95% confidence interval -0.40 to -0.03, p < .03) and LDL-cholesterol (weighted difference in means -3.38 mg/dL, 95% confidence interval -6.27 to -0.49, p < .02).</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Most care management programs for patients with type 2 diabetes are 'carved-out', accomplish limited effects on metabolic outcomes, and have unknown effects on patient important outcomes. Comparative effectiveness research of different models of care management is needed to inform the design of medical homes for patients with chronic conditions.</p